


Where Leads the Road

by Requiem



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Assassins & Hitmen, Gen, Magic, Male-Female Friendship, Modern Fantasy, Monster Hunters, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23611234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Requiem/pseuds/Requiem
Summary: Mages are a rare sight in Caramar nowadays, since they're all supposed to be on the frontlines in the fight against Rissal. Theo's been lying low for the past two years trying to avoid the draft, but when he accidentally kills an intruder one night with his neighbour as a witness, the two of them end up on the run together.
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Male Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4
Collections: Gen Freeform Exchange2020





	Where Leads the Road

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the prompt, Cruria, I had a lot of fun writing this story and I hope you like it :)
> 
> General content warning for a considerable amount of killing done by the main characters, both of humans and non-humans, but nothing too graphic. There's also a non-plot-essential part involving spiders; if that squicks you and you'd like to skip it, it's pretty obvious where it starts, then just do a search for spiders and go to the last result.

Theo hadn't slept well since the war began, but it was rare that his moments of sudden wakefulness were actually warranted and not just a figment of his paranoid imagination. Tonight, a sound from the other side of his bedroom door drew his attention.

The apartment building was old and rundown and strange noises in the night were only to be expected, but the creak was a deeper, more prolonged sound, like someone putting their weight on the creaky floorboard outside Theo's room.

He rolled out of bed, hand going for the staff he was still forgetting he didn't keep around anymore—nothing screamed _mage_ like having a staff in your house—and adjusted his aim to reach for the knife he kept in the top drawer of his bedside table instead.

If he had the choice, though, he would rather cut his losses and run than fight. He opened his window to give the illusion that he'd fled through it, then crouched down low on the other side of his bed.

When the intruder entered, their attention was first drawn to the window like Theo had hoped it would be. Once they were clear of the door, he bolted out of the room, and out of his apartment too, without even stopping to put his shoes on. It'd be hard to start over again with nothing, but even that was better than being caught.

He was undecided between the elevator and the stairs for a second, each on opposite ends of the hall, and felt a hand close on the back of his shirt. He ducked to break the intruder's grip, and ran for the stairs.

Theo could have jumped clean over the railing if he cast a spell first to break his fall, but his heart was thumping furiously and the blood was pounding in his head, and he couldn't think clearly enough to remember the words. He'd had a few close calls over the years, but nothing like this before.

A commotion at the top of the stairs made him look over his shoulder, just in time to see the intruder stumble and put a hand to the back of their head. At the top of the stairs was a young woman, standing in the doorway of the apartment next to Theo's. A shoe tumbled down the stairs past him.

The intruder looked down at Theo, most of their face obscured by a hood and a scarf pulled over their mouth and nose, then up at the woman, and pointed the gun in their hand at her.

Theo didn't even have to think about it, just acted on instinct and reached out with his magic to pull the intruder off balance. The gun went off, one silenced shot embedding itself in the corner where the wall met the ceiling. The intruder turned their gun on Theo, and this time he reached out and _pushed_ , a simple manipulation of matter that required no words.

The next chain of events seemed to happen in slow motion: the intruder's gun went flying through the air, landing back on the fifth floor somewhere, they stumbled back towards the railing, and Theo lunged forward. He reached out first with his hand then with his magic, but it was too little, too late, and the intruder toppled over backwards and fell down four storeys, hitting the lobby on the ground floor with a thump.

Theo gripped the railing with white knuckles and stared over the edge in disbelief, his mind completely blank. He thought he could hear his neighbour coming down the stairs, but her quiet footsteps sounded like they were coming from far away.

She stopped just behind him and let out a low whistle. When he looked over his shoulder at her, she was unashamedly looking back. All Theo could do was stand there, frozen.

"A draft dodger, huh?" she eventually said. "Me too, but you didn't hear it from me."

"You're a mage?" Theo asked, dumbfounded. Of all the things he'd expected her to say, he never would have imagined that.

"No, no, just…my number came up, and I didn't feel like going. You?"

Theo eyed her warily. He had no way to determine if she was telling the truth or not, but he supposed there wasn't any point in making a feeble attempt at denial. "Same."

"I'm Asha, and you are…?"

"Leaving." Whether or not she decided to report him, any number of other people could have been watching through the peepholes in their doors or overheard the altercation and called the police. Theo planned to be gone before they arrived.

"I used to work in security, you know!" she called after him. "Had to change careers and lie low after being drafted, but I do know a thing or two about keeping things safe. People. Whatever."

Theo paused just three steps shy of the landing. "What are you saying?"

"Well, I'm working as a cashier at the grocery store right now, and I don't really think I'm cut out for it. Security's what I do best, and you seem to be in need of it." Asha gave him an expectant look.

"I can take care of myself."

"Is that with or without outing yourself?"

"I don't need your help. Call the police if you want, but I'll be gone before they get here."

"There's no need for that. You help me out, and I'll help you. We'll both win." Asha came up the stairs, and Theo backed up until they were both on the landing.

"Even if I wanted to hire you," he said, "I can't pay you. I can barely afford this apartment as it is, and now I'll have to quit my job and eat the cost of the rest of the week's rent that I've already paid."

"I have a car." Asha reached back into her apartment and brought out a set of car keys that she dangled from her finger. "We can hit the road. Lots of work out in the country what with all the usual hunters and mercs being bought out by the army, and the state police too busy chasing draft dodgers."

"So why aren't you doing that instead of tagging groceries?"

"Every good hunter needs a partner to watch their back. And that magic of yours could come in handy. Nothing overt, mind you. A spell here to set a trap, an enchantment there to keep the rain away, and in return, I'll keep the bounty hunters and police off your back. What do you say?"

Theo knew the saying about things seeming too good to be true, but he had just about nothing left to lose, and this seemed like a lot of effort to go to for a trap. Besides, he was fairly certain that Asha wasn't a mage, so if it came down to it, he'd easily be able to get away.

"You've done this hunting work before?" he asked.

"Are you kidding? I grew up in a family of hunters; it's in my blood. Only reason I went into security is because of the allure of the big city."

"Alright, then. When do we leave?"

-

Theo had his hands clenched into fists to stop them from shaking as Asha drove them west out of the city and away from everything he'd ever known. For having spent most of his life prepared to run at a moment's notice, Adina was a big enough city that he'd never actually had to leave. But then again, he'd never killed anyone before either.

The lights of the city began to blur together after a while, and Theo must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next time he looked out the window, there was daylight, not darkness, and instead of streets and buildings, a field stretched out before him, bordered by a line of trees.

"Good news," Asha said as she returned to the driver's seat and pulled the door shut. "A bounty's been posted on a pack of barghests roaming the forest outside Casula. It's about two hours' drive away, which gives us plenty of time to stock up on supplies and find a place to stay before it gets dark."

"Where are we?" Theo asked groggily. He could see fuel pumps and a storefront out the front window, but there wasn't any kind of sign to indicate where in Caramar they were.

"Three hours west of Adina. It's farmland for a few more hours out, then forest and mountains. I didn't want to wake you to ask which exit you wanted me to take, and I figured this would be the best place to get in some hunting, but I get the idea you don't get out much anyway, huh?"

"Yeah, it's fine," Theo said distractedly as they pulled out of the service station. "What's your plan for the barghests?" Barghests were large dog-like creatures that roamed the wilderness in packs, but if a bounty had been posted, this particular pack must have been terrorising country towns at night.

"We won't be able to take on a whole pack head-on, so I was thinking of getting some traps that you could enchant with fire. Even if we don't get all of them, one or two will be easier to deal with than a whole pack, and I can pick them off with incendiary rounds."

"Has this worked for you before?" It seemed overly optimistic to think that a few traps and incendiary rounds would be enough to hold their own against a pack of barghests, but Asha was the only one between them with field experience.

"I've never taken on a pack of barghests with just two people before, but I know that even though they look like demons, they do have a corporeal form, and their weakness is fire. So shouldn't it stand to reason that if you take something that can kill a regular dog and add fire to it, you get something that kills barghests?"

"It takes more than just a bit of fire to kill a barghest. They can even pass through a wall of flames if they're determined enough. What you want is _sustained_ fire, like trapping them in a pit of oil and throwing in a match. Or even better, an enchanted sword—"

"A _sword_?" Asha cut in. "We don't have time to find one, and unless the farmers already thought of the pit idea, we don't have time to be digging one. Will incendiary rounds work or not?"

"If you can get enough of them into a barghest before it kills you. I can't give you a number; I've never tried it myself, and I don't know of anyone who has."

"Do you have a better idea?" Asha framed it as a question, not a challenge, so Theo gave it some serious thought.

"Oil, for one. It'll help the fire catch more easily and burn longer. And I think we should consider a scenario where we don't manage to trap any of the barghests. They're more intelligent than wolves or dogs, and they'll know to avoid any obvious traps."

"We don't want them avoiding us and attacking the town instead," Asha said, "so I'm thinking we'll need to set up quite close to the forest. Let's wait 'til we can scope out our surroundings to make a decision."

"I'll need to make a staff." If Theo was going to be working magic on purpose for some time, having even just an unadorned length of wood to act as a conduit would help with staying in control of his spells. And if it came down to it, he could use the staff for self-defence.

Asha pulled a piece of paper out of the glove box and thrust it at Theo. "Put what you need on the list."

-

They left the small hardware shop in Casula with an assortment of traps and snares, and a sturdy length of oak for Theo to carve into a staff. The store owner felt compelled to give them a warning after three groups of bounty hunters had already failed to take down the barghests, sending two hunters to the morgue and another three to the hospital in Adina with serious injuries. Asha only smiled and reassured him that she and Theo did this sort of thing all the time.

"He knows," Theo said once they were back in the car. The owner had given the piece of oak a long stare when Theo had leaned it against the counter, then been very careful not to look too closely at it or Theo the rest of the time he and Asha had been in the store.

"If he does, he doesn't care. The pack's already killed four townspeople and injured a dozen more, not to mention all the livestock they've taken. Unless you perform magic right in front of the state police, I doubt turning you in would even cross the minds of these people."

"And if it does? We can't just keep running, we won't have any money left."

"If they want to turn you in, they'd at least wait until we cleared out the barghests, so I say, let's not worry about it until then."

Still, the threat hovered in the back of Theo's mind until they arrived at the farm that had been most recently hit by the barghests. The sight of the carnage still strewn about the shed where three goats and one of the dogs guarding them had been killed was enough to drive all other worries away.

"Good God, look at the size of these tracks." Asha had one arm over her mouth and nose to ward off the smell as she bent over to examine a blood trail leading away from the shed.

In the trail were large paw prints, similar to that of a dog's with longer claw marks, but no ordinary dog, not even a wolf, would be capable of leaving tracks of that size and depth.

"No wonder the other hunters had so much trouble," Asha mused. "Barghests usually travel in groups of three to six, but two hunters should be enough to take them down with enough preparation. I've never seen them this big, though."

"What about us? Will our plan still work?"

"Yeah, we'll just have to be real careful about where we set our traps. And we're gonna need some really good bait."

They didn't set up that night, but instead used the last of the daylight to scope out the surrounding farmland without venturing into the forest, then returned to town to spend the night in a motel. Out the window, Theo could see that every streetlight and exterior building light was turned on, and large braziers had been set up at the ends of the main roads in an attempt to keep the barghests out of town. Beyond the flames of the braziers, Theo thought he could see ghostly flickers of green light moving back and forth.

-

Theo and Asha set out at first light and set up their snares in a rough zig-zag from the forest across the farm where the last attack had taken place, leading towards a circular barricade of sandbags, bricks, barrels, and wooden pallets that the townspeople helped them put together. If the plan went well, this would be the final location of their face off against the barghests.

One of the most crucial parts of the plan that Asha neglected to tell Theo until after all the townspeople had returned to their homes for the evening was how they were going to lure the barghests into their trap.

"What do you mean you're going to 'run for it'?"

"Well, you'd normally use dogs or some other animal that can run fast enough, but we don't have any, and none of the sheepdogs they use out here will be trained for it."

"I could try summoning a wisp. They chase those sometimes."

"Sometimes, yeah. But once the barghests realise it's a wisp and not a faerie or some other corporeal being, they'll lose interest. And it's not good enough bait to make the rest of them want to keep going once some of them get caught in the snares."

"Do you really think you can outrun a pack of barghests?"

"With enough of a head start, a short enough distance to cross, and sufficient motivation coming from behind? Yeah. And I've been practising too, what with all my running from the law recently and whatnot."

"This is insane."

Still, when night fell, Asha went out to where their line of snares began, and stood there shouting and waving her arms while Theo watched from the barricade. He held a pair of binoculars up to his eyes with one hand, and had a lighter in the other ready to spring the trap once Asha was safely inside.

It wasn't until the sun had completely set that Theo began to see the first hints of a ghostly glow through the undergrowth, and no sooner than he had did he feel more than hear the low rumble of a pack of barghests growling.

They weren't entirely mindless beasts, and kept their distance as they likely tried to figure out what Asha was trying to do. She and Theo had made sure the snares were carefully disguised, and there was no way the barghests would have been able to watch them be set as they would have been sheltering deep in the forest during the daytime. Once the one Theo thought of as the pack leader—pacing back and forth behind the others that had set up a line across the threshold of the forest—decided it was safe, the rest of the pack sprang forward.

Theo wanted to react in response but stayed his hand, as per the plan. He could see that Asha had reacted quickly though, just as fast as she'd claimed to be. She ran straight back towards Theo, right over the snares that wouldn't trigger with her slighter build, and the first barghest became caught almost right away. The one behind it veered off quickly and avoided the rest of the snares, but the third, which had been approaching from the side, lunged for Asha and became caught on another snare.

Theo had enchanted the snares to burst into flames upon being triggered, feeding on the oil that they each had been liberally coated in. It wouldn't last very long, but he was hoping it would weaken the barghests enough that they wouldn't be able to free themselves, and that he and Asha could deal with the trapped ones later.

The second barghest was quickly gaining on Asha while the fourth and fifth ones had caught on to the snares and were taking a more circuitous route towards Theo and the barricade. He was so focused on Asha and getting ready to come to her aid that he'd lost track of the pack's leader, and almost didn't notice it stalk out of the darkness to his left.

His combat training kicked in before his mind could even think of what to do, and he dropped everything in his hands in favour of scooping up the staff lying at his feet, bringing it up to block the gaping jaws of the pack leader as it tried to take a chunk out of his side.

Theo fell to the ground with the force of the blow and fought desperately to keep the barghest's teeth and claws away from his vital organs. If he'd had the materials to make a proper staff he might have been able to activate its enchantment and force the barghest off him, but all he had at his disposal at the moment was the ability to summon forth a burst of flame to get the barghest to back up. The flame wasn't large enough to completely drive the barghest away, but it reared back for a moment, and Theo managed to kick it off balance and get to his feet.

There was a loud gunshot from behind him, then another burst of flame appeared on the barghest, and it took a few steps backwards.

"We need fire!" Asha yelled, rifle in hand as she fired off another shot. Theo hadn't even noticed her arrival.

Barghests two, four, and five had also arrived, though the barricade gave them some pause as it was too high for them to leap over the front without exposing themselves for an easy shot. Two and five began circling around to the side, which was when Theo drove his staff into the ground and threw up a wall of fire encircling himself, Asha, and the barricade rather than fumbling around for the fallen lighter. Before the barghests could run off to find easier prey, he threw up another wall, this one further out than the first, trapping the four barghests between two circles of flame.

The ditch around the barricade had been soaked in the same oil they'd used for the traps—motor oil donated by the owner of the local mechanics' shop—which made it easier for Theo to set alight the space between the two walls instantaneously so that none of the barghests could think of jumping through the walls, which they had a chance of surviving if done quickly enough. Being completely engulfed in flames was something they _couldn’t_ survive, though, so with a last unearthly dying shriek, the four barghests were banished from the material plane.

Theo let the flames burn themselves out and slowly sank to the ground, worn out from the sudden exertion. He hadn't intended to do any magic beyond enchanting the snares, but he'd have to find a way to get in more practice if the hunts were going to be like this.

"All yours," he said to Asha, gesturing at two barghests still caught in the snares at the edge of the field. If he had any energy left he would have taken care of them too so the incendiary rounds could be saved for another time, but simply staying awake was taking all the strength he had right now.

-

Theo barely remembered trudging back to the motel, but when he woke up some twelve hours later, he was lying on his bed in the motel still wearing shoes, and Asha had just come in the door.

"I got our reward." She waved a stack of notes at him. "The town sheriff didn't ask anything about you being a mage, didn't even give me any funny looks, so I think it's safe to assume everyone's keeping their mouths shut. I also went to pick up the rest of the snares and the field's a big mess, but we don't have to clean it up."

"Good. We should be on our way." Theo rolled over and sat up, stretching out his sore body. It felt like he'd tensed up every muscle all at once for hours on end, and he just knew he'd be feeling it for days. "Find something easier next time."

They headed south around the forest, away from the front and hopefully further away from anyone who might be on their trail.

They were still on the road when night fell, since the towns they'd passed through earlier had been too small to contain public lodgings of any kind, and they would have had to camp anyway or risk relying on someone's hospitality. They were away from the forest, at least, and the light strips that lined the road would deter most minor nuisances from getting too close. For the larger pests, Theo started a fire and traded off watches with Asha through the night.

"Where are you from?" Theo asked when he couldn't fall asleep during Asha's turn to keep watch.

"A tiny little town far off to the east. More a village, really."

"Does the rest of your family still live there?"

"Yes, but if you're thinking we could stay with them, let me tell you: not a good idea. They're big nationalists, and if they're not off fighting in the war already and I go home and they find out I've dodged the draft? My father would probably bar the door while my mother calls the army to come pick me up."

"South-west it is."

-

They found their next bounty in Orline, a nest of spiders that had been quietly growing over the spring and summer in a barn that had been left vacant after the farm's owners had left for the war. The spiderlings had begun looking for homes of their own to settle in for the winter, and the town was the closest place with any shelter.

When Asha had first brought the bounty notice to Theo, he'd wondered why anyone would need to call in hunters for a spider nest, even one of eximius spiders—they were larger than most others with a body the size of a fist and had a high resistance to most elemental attacks, but they could still be easily killed with blades, projectiles, or blunt force like any other spider—but then he and Asha had driven to the town, and the first thing they'd seen was a barn out in a field that looked like it was covered in snow, except it was entirely engulfed by spider webs.

"We should ask for more money," Asha said as she stopped the car before a flimsy wire fence that someone had put up to mark a safe perimeter.

Even from here, they could see the dark spots of spiderlings crawling on the roof of the barn, waiting for a breeze to catch them so they could be swept away to new pastures. Further down the road, Theo could see a few people with rifles patrolling the perimeter of the field.

Asha went down to speak with them, and returned with a grimace.

"The spiders have acquired a taste for human flesh, apparently." She set down a bag at her feet that she hadn't been carrying before. "Only corpses for now, but the mayor thinks it's only a matter of time before they become bold enough to grab themselves a still-moving snack, and I agree. I didn't manage to negotiate for more money, but I got us this." Asha opened the bag to reveal that it was packed full of explosives. "Think it'll do?"

"I think it might."

The plan was to collapse the barn and bury it deeply enough that even if any spiders survived the initial explosion, they wouldn't be able to dig themselves out. Eximius spiders were usually forest-dwellers and not accustomed to digging, so Theo reckoned a metre or so of dirt piled on top and firmly packed down would be enough to keep them from coming back. First, though, someone had to get close enough to plant the explosives.

They'd split the explosives between them to begin with, but the closer they got to the barn, the more daunting the prospect of getting so close to such a large nest.

"It doesn't really take two of us to plant explosives, does it?" Theo asked.

"Are you trying to volunteer me to be eaten?" Asha gave him an unimpressed look.

"You said the mayor told you they weren't attacking living beings."

" _Yet_. I said _yet_. They might think now is a good time to start, especially if it looks like I'm offering myself up to be lunch. Look, if we go together, we'll split their attention."

"I should prepare my spell."

"Are we in this together or not? I thought we were supposed to be partners."

Only out of necessity, Theo wanted to say, but Asha had a point; he'd agreed to help her on hunts in return for her keeping the army off his back. It was too soon to say if she'd hold up her end of the bargain, but if he didn't make good on his promise, she'd have no reason to do the same.

"Fine, I'll go left."

It wasn't enough to plant explosives around the outside—they had to go inside too or the barn might not collapse all the way, so someone had to go in.

"It should be fine," Theo said as he and Asha peered through a thinner section of the webs into the interior of the barn, illuminated by a small wisp that Theo had summoned. The spiders had stuck mostly to the walls and support beams, and there was enough space to walk through without getting stuck. "Eximius spiders don't usually eat…flesh. It was probably just a spur of the moment thing when they decided to eat that corpse."

"If you're so sure, why don't you go in?" Asha asked.

"If it comes down to it, I can do more to help you out here. A barrier spell, or something."

"Why can't you do that now?"

"I don't have my staff, I don't want to risk it. Now go on, before we stand out here for so long that the spiders think we're already dead. No sudden movements."

Asha used her knife to carefully cut away the webs covering the hole in the wall that was just large enough for her to slip through. Theo kept a close eye on the spiders outside, but they seemed mostly unbothered by his and Asha's presence. Eximius spiders weren't territorial and didn't have much greater intelligence than the average mundane spider, so they probably wouldn't attack unless directly provoked.

They were, however, still curious creatures, and when Theo felt one land on his back, he summoned every bit of self-control he had in order to not flinch. The spider tapped its legs on his back, and as if that was some kind of signal, another spider jumped onto his arm. Theo reluctantly glanced down to find the spider staring back up at him with its many-faceted eyes, clicking its sizeable mandibles.

"Asha, hurry up," Theo hissed.

"I thought you said no sudden movements."

"They're starting to crawl on me."

Asha visibly jumped, as though she could feel them on her too.

"No sudden movements," Theo reminded her.

"Can you get them off?"

"I'd rather you were out here before I start trying."

"Okay, just one more. Try not to get eaten."

By the time Asha was back out of the barn, a third spider had joined the other two, this one landing on Theo's shoulder before crawling down to join the other one on his arm.

"Oh, that's…what should I do?" Asha asked, leaning as far back as she could.

"Give me your knife." Theo slowly extended his free arm, and Asha placed the hilt of her knife in his hand. He flipped it around so he was holding it by the blade, then gently prodded one of the spiders on his arm until it reluctantly clambered back onto the webbed barn wall next to him. The other one followed, leaving only the spider on his back that had now clambered up to his neck. Two of its legs had slipped beneath the collar of his shirt, and he could feel the hairs brushing his skin.

"Asha, could you…" Theo motioned behind him and passed the knife back to Asha.

She grimaced, but took the knife and slowly moved behind Theo. "It's looking at me," she complained.

"Just get it off before it decides to test if I'm edible or not."

Theo couldn't see what Asha was doing, but he could feel the spider moving, first further up towards his head, then it was gone.

"Oh no," he heard Asha whisper.

"What?" Theo turned around to find the spider was now crawling up Asha's arm. She was wearing short sleeves, and he couldn't help but wince in sympathy. "Back up slowly so that it can—"

The spider suddenly picked up speed, and before Theo could give warning, Asha had transferred the knife to her other hand and flicked the spider off her shoulder. It flew through the hole in the wall into the barn. Around them, a rustling sound began to pick up, like thousands of legs were beginning to move.

"That was a sudden movement, wasn't it?" Asha asked, still whispering.

"Yes, it was." Theo didn't dare to look up.

"So if we start running now, it won't make much of a difference?"

"That might actually be the best thing to do."

They made a run for the slope at the edge of the field where they'd been planning to shelter from the explosion. The most important thing was that Theo had left his staff there, and he immediately picked it up and began casting the earthbreaker spell that would drop the barn several metres below ground level, preparation be damned.

"Now," he said to Asha when the spell was ready to be released.

They timed it perfectly so that the spell was concealed by the explosives going off, and when the dust settled, all that was left of the barn was a large hole with broken slats of wood sticking out of it. Some of the spiders that had survived the blast were trying to escape by casting threads of silk into the wind, but Asha picked them off with her rifle, and the townspeople did the same on the other side of the field for any coming their way.

"How are we going to explain that?" Theo nodded at the deep crack in the ground leading from their position to the barn that marked the path of the spell. If he'd had time to prepare, he could have concentrated the spell to just affect the area around the barn.

"We said we'd cover the hole, didn't we?" Asha said. "I'll patch that up too. By the time anyone comes out here to look closely enough to start asking questions, we'll be long gone."

Theo stood watch over the barn with Asha's rifle while she got on a tractor with a front-end loader and shovelled dirt over what remained of the barn. She made enough tracks across the field that the covered-up crack didn’t look so out of place once she was finished.

"I told them to put something heavy over the area if they were worried, but as far as I'm concerned, our job here is done," Asha said as she started the car. It was late afternoon now, but Theo hadn't wanted to linger.

"You know," he said as they left Orline behind, "I've never had a problem with spiders before, but…"

"Oh, same." Asha groaned. "No more spiders. I've had enough of their hairy little legs. And—and the eyes! So many! What do they need them for?"

Still distracted by their unsettling encounter with the spiders—Theo could still feel them crawling over him, and from the way Asha would periodically brush at her arms, she could too—they perhaps didn't take as much care as they usually would when setting up camp for the night off the side of the highway.

It happened during Asha's watch, and Theo didn't wake up until the fight was almost over. By the time he got to his feet, staff in hand, Asha was climbing off a motionless body on the ground. In her hand was her knife, blood dripping off the end of the blade.

"You killed him," Theo said numbly.

"He was trying to kill me." Asha kicked another knife towards Theo. No blood on this blade.

The man at their apartment building had been shooting to kill, too. "What good does it do to kill a draft dodger?" Theo asked as he picked up the knife and looked it over.

Asha shrugged. "You have to admit, though, it sends a message to everyone else: you either take the risk of dying for your country, or we'll come kill you ourselves."

"What will they do when there's no one left to die for them?"

"Then I guess we'll lose, and everyone else will blame those of us who refused to fight." Asha shrugged again. "We have other problems to worry about right now." She wiped her knife on the dead man's clothes, then sheathed it and picked up his arms. "Grab his legs," she said to Theo.

They carried the body to the other side of the road where the ground dropped off sharply, and dumped it over the cliff.

"The fresh blood should attract predators," Asha said after getting Theo to summon a wisp so she could check the body wasn't visible to anyone casually looking over the side. "With any luck, no one will know he's gone missing for a few days, but we'll have to leave his bike where it is so it looks like he accidentally fell while taking a walk."

"Who did you say you worked security for?" Theo asked. Asha seemed way too calm and knowledgeable about disposing of dead bodies to have been a regular security guard.

"It's classified. But don't worry, you're in good hands."

They packed up camp and left within the hour, taking turns to drive until they'd put a day's travel between them and the body that Theo couldn't get out of his head. Just another one to add to the collection, he supposed, and there would likely be more to come.

He couldn’t let them take him.

-

The next job was slagworms in Drexon, a mining town desperate for help so that its miners wouldn't have to choose between their lives and livelihoods every time they went to work. There were already other hunters there, a group of four that welcomed the help and promised to split the bounty fairly. Theo wanted to leave, but he and Asha hadn't had a job for over a week, and they were running low on funds with no guarantee of being able to find work in the next town.

Asha convinced the other hunters that they were better off splitting into three groups of two, not two groups of three, in order to cover more ground in the tunnels. They couldn't use explosives or high-powered rifles underground for fear of setting off a cave-in, so they stuck to handguns, crossbows, and polearms. The other hunters lent Theo and Asha two spears for up-close encounters, and Theo took them into the mine with his staff without anyone being the wiser.

Even with the six of them, it still took the better part of a day to make sure the mine was completely safe, after which the townspeople threw them a celebration dinner in the square. There hadn't been the chance to eat many decently-cooked meals recently so Theo was looking forward to it, but all through the night, Asha remained distracted and mostly uninterested in the food.

"Alright, what's going on?" Theo eventually asked, keeping his voice low so it would be easily drowned out by the surrounding noise.

"I can't shake the feeling that something's not right. I just can't figure out who we should be suspicious of." Asha's tone was grave, but she kept a bright smile on her face for the passersby.

"Do you want to get out of here?" As much as Theo wanted to stay, running on gut instinct had served him well in the past.

"Let's."

They claimed their share of the bounty from the town mayor, who also offered them a place to stay in his home. Asha smiled and accepted the invitation, told him they would just go out to the car to get their things, then they drove off into the night without saying goodbye.

They didn't stop to rest that night, trading off every few hours and keeping a close watch on the mirrors for anyone that might be following. They managed to get in some sleep the next afternoon by pulling into the carpark of a shopping centre in a larger town for a few hours, but didn’t dare to stay the night since Asha was afraid it would make them too easy to find.

So back on the road they went, turning down small, unmarked roads and doubling back to exits they'd already passed. They camped in the wilderness that night and no one attacked them, so the next night, they took their chances in a tranquil riverside town whose steady stream of holiday makers and travellers passing through had dried up with the war, leaving plenty of empty beds for the taking.

Things remained quiet until they left, whereupon a silver car began following them, and it wasn't subtle about it at all, slowing down and speeding up when they did, making every sudden turn and illegal move they made.

"What's their game here?" Theo asked as he watched the car in the side mirror. As far as he could see, there were two people inside.

"They know we can't lose them out here, so I guess they're banking on us having to stop before they do. Since we don't have any backup fuel and I'm assuming they do since this is their plan…we should come up with one of our own."

"What if we damage their car?"

"You any good with a gun?"

"No, but if they're after us, they'll already know I'm a mage."

Theo started with a simple fire spell, not hot enough to produce actual flames, just to overheat the engine of the other car. Fire spells were one of the earliest things he'd been able to do instinctively without instruction, and he had a good enough grasp on them to be able to accurately cast the spell at this range.

He wound down the window and leaned out, then threw the spell over the other car. No sooner had he felt it settle into place than it abruptly vanished, like a bucket of cold water thrown over a fire.

"They've got one of their own." Theo pulled himself back into the car.

"One of them's a mage?" Theo had thought nothing could surprise Asha, but it was definitely shock in her voice as she checked the rear-view mirror.

"Quite a good one, too." Spells that encountered anti-magic countermeasures felt different to spells that were extinguished by another mage.

"Right. Get my rifle from the back seat."

Theo did as Asha asked, and also slid a magazine in on her instruction.

"Now what? I don't think I can hit the wheels from here."

"I'll take that. You watch the road and take the wheel."

"What are you going to do?"

"I know what I'm doing, Theo, just keep us on the road, I've got the cruise control on."

Asha readied the rifle, then stuck her entire upper body out the window. Theo didn't dare take his eyes off the road, not even to look in the rear-view mirror, but he heard her fire off two shots in rapid succession. Then she slammed her foot on the brake before she was even fully back inside the car, and wrenched the steering wheel away from Theo so that the car spun around.

The other car was far behind them now, though it looked like it'd veered off the road and into the ditch that ran alongside. Asha gave Theo her rifle and drove them back towards the other car, stopping not quite close enough for Theo to see if the occupants had survived the crash or not.

"Stay here." Asha took her rifle back and got out of the car.

"Asha…"

"Stay here." All of Asha's usual good cheer was gone. "If you can put up a cloaking spell around us, do it. We don't need any witnesses."

It was clear what Asha intended to do, and though it went against every grain of Theo's moral fibre, it was easier to take the degree of separation she'd offered and sit here and cast a cloaking spell than it was to get out of the car and stop her, then have to deal with the continued pursuit. He wouldn’t be the one who got them caught.

A car passed by as Asha fired two shots, but Theo had woven the cloaking spell thick enough to muffle sound as well as conceal them from sight, so there would be no one to bear witness.

"Can you leave the cloaking spell in place once we're gone?" Asha asked, throwing open the back door.

"Not without the right materials for rune-marking and at least an hour of preparation."

"Fine, we'll siphon the rest of their fuel then get out of here as quickly as we can."

They were back on the road before long, though instead of the usual small talk or the radio running on low in the background, there was complete silence in the car. Though Theo knew Asha wasn't the sort to get all emotional about killing, even if it was a person, she had to be thinking the same things he was: first, they weren't all that far from the nearest town and had just left behind a fairly noticeable murder scene; and second, it really was murder this time, without the mitigating factor of self-defence.

"We should get out of the country," Asha said after two hours of heavy silence.

"Where can we go?" Theo asked. "They'll never stop chasing me." He wouldn't put it past the government to declare war on another neighbouring country if they were discovered to be sheltering him.

"Why not?" Asha looked over at him. She'd never pressed Theo for details about his past, but he could tell she'd always wanted to ask. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. It's just who I am."

Asha let out a short, humourless laugh. "Can't change that."

"No," Theo agreed.

Asha didn't say anything else about leaving the country, just drove them south, turning west before Kearsby Fields then north at Colbridge, west again at Elsen's Ridge, then south-east towards Ainsley, which had been their original destination. Theo traded off with her every few hours, and they drove nonstop for four days with copious amounts of doubling back and making carefully-orchestrated conspicuous appearances in several places to leave a trail heading northwest.

When they finally arrived in Ainsley, its noticeboards rife with bounties like Asha had predicted—the town was surrounded by fertile land and lush forest and could afford to pay for work that would usually be done by the able-bodied men and women who had been called to service—neither of them had gotten a good night's sleep in nearly a week. They hadn't had a job since Drexon, either, and their funds were running low, so they had no choice but to take on a bounty.

Asha chose something that looked easy: catching and delivering the carcasses of two dozen vierka—squirrel-like creatures with venomous claws—that were infesting the nearby forest and coming out at night to strip the fields of crop. All they had to do was set some traps, and be patient.

The job was set to take a few days at least, so they invested in a tarp to make a shelter with, and bought a roll of wire for making their own snares since the ones they'd bought in the early days of their hunting trip were designed for larger animals, and vierka wouldn't trigger them at all.

They spent the first day setting snares, the second day field dressing their small catch—something Asha had to teach Theo, but by the time he was on two out of their catch of four, he felt like he was getting the hang of things—and setting more snares, then on the third day, while Asha was in town delivering the first dozen vierka, two people came into the camp, a man and a woman dressed in clothes that wouldn't look out of place on a pair of hikers. Except this part of the forest was well out of the way of any trails, and they would have had no reason to come this way.

"Hi there," the woman said, coming forward with a friendly smile. For some reason, she reminded him of Asha. "Are you all alone out here?"

"No, I'm here with my…friend," Theo said cautiously. The two strangers didn't look like they were armed, but Theo knew from his experience with Asha that weapons were easy to conceal.

"Sorry to intrude, but would you mind if we joined you for a while? I'm Nyala, and my boyfriend Ezra and I have been walking for hours without anywhere to rest. We're quite exhausted."

It was the smile; that was what reminded him of Asha. It was the same smile she'd used on the mayor of Drexon before she and Theo had bolted, the same smile she'd used to convince the hardware store owner in Casula that she and Theo were seasoned hunters.

"Go ahead." Theo gestured at the empty space in front of him as he stood up. "Do you need water? Food? Let me get you some."

He retreated to the tarp over Nyala's protests. His staff was in Asha's car, but that was probably for the best. Under the tarp, amongst the water bottles and packets of snacks, was the knife Theo used for skinning and gutting the vierka. There wasn't a belt for the sheath so he didn't usually carry it around with him like Asha did with her knife, but he stuck it in his pocket just in case.

"Ah." Nyala's hand was on Theo's wrist; he hadn't even heard her sneak up behind him. "Put the knife down, Theo. There's no need for things to get violent."

"I didn't tell you my name."

"No, you didn't."

Theo put the knife back, and Nyala did a search of his person for more weapons before nudging him back out to the clearing with a knife of her own. Ezra was waiting with a gun trained on Theo, and motioned with it for Theo to sit down.

"Well, you've got me," Theo said when neither Ezra nor Nyala made any further moves. "Shouldn't we get going?"

"What could we possibly want with you?" Ezra asked with a derisive snort.

"You're not working for the military?"

"Of Caramar? No. We're after Kali. But just in case you get any ideas…" Nyala pulled Theo's hands behind his back and clamped dampening cuffs around his wrists.

"You're after who?" Theo asked as he sent a jolt of electricity through the cuffs to test their strength. These were the good ones; the electricity had barely crackled to life on his skin before the dampening field in the cuffs kicked in. He'd had practice getting out of such cuffs, though—one never knew when such a skill might come in handy—and he was sure that if it came down to it, he could get himself out.

"Asha." Nyala waved a dismissive hand. "Whatever she's calling herself these days."

"He didn't know." Ezra was smirking. "What lies has she been feeding you?"

"None that you need to concern yourself with." At the edge of the clearing stood Asha, her rifle pointed at Ezra. "Nyala," she said with false cheer. "Ezra. Fancy meeting you here."

"Kali," Nyala said. "You're a hard woman to get hold of."

"For good reason. I see you people still haven't gotten the hint."

"Just come back with us, Kali," Ezra said. "There's no need for blood to be spilled over this."

"Any more, that is," Nyala added. "We all heard what you did to Ismar and Myrna."

"And Edvin, but nobody really liked him. You actually did us a favour with that one."

"What about him?" Asha jerked her head in Theo's direction.

"He can go. We're not interested in him."

"And me? Is my only choice to go back or die? Or go back _then_ die?"

"The guildmasters aren't going to kill you." Nyala scoffed. "What a waste of a perfectly good asset. They might throw you back in with the novices for running off and killing Ismar and Myrna, though."

"You didn't answer my other question: what if I don't want to go back?"

"Be realistic, Kali," Ezra said. "What else could you possibly do?"

Asha made eye contact with Theo. He tested the cuffs again, then nodded.

"This," Asha said, and pulled the trigger.

In the same moment, Theo threw himself to the side so that Ezra's shot at him went wide, then he brought forth as much power as he could summon, and broke the cuffs clean in two.

He saw Nyala's knife fly overhead and heard Asha cursing loudly before she fired off another shot. It didn't hit Nyala because she'd made a run for it, but she passed by within arm's reach of Theo, and he grabbed her ankle and tackled her to the ground. He used a stasis spell to hold her in place, but he wasn't sure what to do after that.

"Move." Asha had her rifle pointed at Nyala.

"No," Theo said reflexively.

"Oh, come on! What do you think is going to happen if we let her go? You think she's going to go home, call the job off? Don't be so naïve."

"Those can't be our only options. There has to be some sort of middle ground."

"We turn her into the police and she turns right back on us. There is no middle ground."

"Fine." Theo left Nyala where she was and walked off into the forest. Behind him, he could hear Asha and Nyala talking, then a gunshot, and everything became quiet.

-

Theo took a long walk through the forest to clear his head, keeping track of his position relative to the camp but otherwise trying not to think of anything else. At least six people had died because of him—or was it?—when the whole reason he'd been on the run in the first place was to avoid having to kill anyone. Just because he'd only landed the killing blow on one of them didn't mean he was free from responsibility. On the other hand, if they'd always been after Asha in the first place, what could he have done?

Only when it started to get dark did Theo realise how long he'd been gone. On his way back to the camp, he checked the snares that were on his way, and retrieved three more vierka to add to their catch.

There was no sign of Asha or her car when Theo reached the camp, but all their supplies were still in the same place, and in the undergrowth around the edge of the clearing, Theo could see two poorly-concealed bodies through the bushes.

Working under the assumption that Asha intended to return, Theo skinned the three vierka and carefully extracted the venom glands in their front legs, placing everything in a stasis field to slow decomposition before stringing it up out of reach of other animals looking for a snack.

Asha still wasn't back, so Theo lit a small fire and suspended a can of soup over it. While that was heating up, he dragged the bodies further into the undergrowth and cast a cloaking spell over them to hide them from anyone else who might be wandering through the forest. He returned to the fire just in time to hear Asha's car pull up to the clearing.

She came out carrying a small plastic bag and walking slower than usual, one hand pressed to her left side just under the ribs. She looked annoyed, but it didn't seem to be aimed at Theo.

"What happened to you?" he asked.

"Nyala got me with her fucking knife." Asha gingerly lowered herself to the ground with a wince. "She's always had bloody good aim. It went in all the way to the hilt, too. I went back to town for first aid supplies."

Theo bit off a remark about how he could have helped close the wound; he was the one who'd walked off without checking if Asha was alright. He might have been angry, but they were still partners.

"Did you see a doctor?"

"No need, it'll heal up on its own. This is not my first stabbing."

Theo poured out the can of soup into two bowls, then put another on the fire. They ate in total silence, and it remained that way even after Theo washed the bowls and cutlery and put them away.

Eventually, Asha spoke first. "I know it's dark now, but I think we should go out and lay more snares. We need the money, but I want to be out of here as quickly as possible."

"That's it?" Theo asked. "We're just going to pretend nothing happened?"

"Feel free to leave, but we're splitting all our stuff fifty-fifty, and I keep the car. That doesn't leave you with much, which is why I figured you'd want to finish this hunt first for the extra cash."

"What I want is for you to tell me the truth."

"Nothing to tell. It doesn't concern you."

"Your name's not even Asha!"

"It's the name I'm using now. New life, new name. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, _you_ should probably think about changing your name. I can't believe you're still using the same one. That's just asking to be caught. You were lucky you had me, you know."

"What else have you told me has been a lie?"

"Oh, well…" Asha looked away. "Just about everything. I'm not even from Caramar. I used to be part of an assassins' guild in Rissal."

"Your family?"

"Never knew them. Assassins' guilds work much better that way."

"Why me?"

"Pure coincidence. I wasn't following you around, if that's what you're thinking. I didn't even know who you were until we met that night."

"But the assassin came into came into my apartment."

"What, like assassins never make mistakes? All the apartments in our building looked the same, and yours was right next to mine. An easy mistake to make."

"Then I didn't really have to leave Adina, did I? You dragged me along for your benefit."

"Yes, travelling with a mage gives me an edge over whoever the guild might send after me, but don't forget that you were in trouble too. We helped each other. How long do you think you could have stayed in the city without anyone finding out what you are?"

"A lot longer if you'd never showed up, that I know for sure."

"Theo, come on. Can't you at least admit that we make good partners?"

"This… _partnership_ is built on lies!"

"Only at the beginning, out of necessity!"

Remembering the stories Asha had told him about her childhood and her family to fill the long drives, Theo fixed her with a hard glare.

"Alright," Asha conceded, "there were a lot of lies, but once I started, I couldn't stop myself. If you were in the same business, you'd know how it feels. Also, I wasn't going to say anything, but did you really believe the government would send _assassins_ after a draft dodger? Even one who's a mage."

Now it was Theo's turn to avoid eye contact. He didn't really want to tell Asha about his own past, but given all the questions he was asking her, it only seemed fair. "Well, I haven't been completely honest with you either."

"Oh?" Asha raised an eyebrow. "Do tell."

"Over twenty-two years ago, the Caramar government ran a secret project experimenting with genetic tissue from some of the country's most powerful mages."

"I can guess where this is going."

"Yeah, some of their experiments succeeded, and I was one of them. But when I was still very young, some people came and broke me and the other children out of the facility. They gave us new names, new families, families that knew how to raise mages and keep their talents a secret. I lived a normal life, for the most part, but there was always the fear that someone would find out who I was, where I'd come from. When the war started two years ago, my parents, both of them mages, knew they'd end up being conscripted. They sent me away before the draft was issued so the army wouldn't be able to get their hands on me, and I've been lying low ever since, waiting for the war to be over."

"Damn. I'm starting to feel a little bad about the lying. This almost never happens."

"Why are you really on the run?"

"You're lucky you got out early. Otherwise, your life might have turned out a little like mine. Day in, day out, do this, do that. They say jump, you say, off what? I'm just so fucking sick of it. But no one gets out alive, you see? Gives the guild a bad reputation. So they've sent a few of my old friends after me to make sure I can be hauled back and made an example of. That's been going on for nearly a year now, and I really thought they'd start losing interest, but if anything, they've ramped up their retrieval efforts. It's been hugely annoying."

"Nyala said they'd take you back."

"All lies. We never hear about anyone leaving the guild and coming back, and I refuse to believe that I'm the first person who's ever thought about leaving. Therefore, no one ever gets out alive."

"But would you go back? If you could?"

"Look, Theo, I haven't fought this hard to leave to turn back now. I'll run as far as I have to, kill every person they send after me. You were good for insurance and handy to have on hunts, but I don't really need you. So let's finish this hunt, split the bounty, and go our separate ways."

"What for?" Theo asked, almost unconsciously. He was trying to imagine what the weeks ahead would look like without Asha constantly chattering away in his ear about the weather or the countryside or their next hunt, and it looked…lonely. Life on the run was better in company.

"Are you saying you don't want to leave?" Asha looked skeptical to the point of suspicion.

"Where would I go?" Theo asked her. "What would I do? I barely had anything to my name in Adina and I had to leave it all behind. Do you know how hard it is to start over from nothing? All the while knowing you might have to leave at a moment's notice and do it all over again?"

"I do."

"So what would you do if you were in my position?"

"Honestly? We're not really comparable. I'd kill for my freedom. Have, actually, and I will again. For as long as it takes. Would you?"

"I…yes. If there was no other way."

"Even a soldier or police officer just doing their job?"

"If I had no other choice."

"There's always a choice, Theo. You just might not like what you have to choose from, is all."

Theo considered Asha's words for a long moment, then eventually said, "I know," but she'd already fallen asleep.

Asha looked like she needed the rest, so Theo kept watch by himself through the night, dozing fitfully for no more than an hour at a time. A combination of paranoia and the sheer discomfort of trying to sleep sitting against a tree helped him stay awake until dawn, at which point he gave up on trying to rest and did a sweep of their surroundings before going to check on the snares.

Asha was awake when Theo got back to camp with the latest catch of vierka, though it looked like she hadn't been up for long.

"Huh," she said when she saw Theo. "You really stayed."

"I said I wasn't going to leave."

"I suppose I've gotten too used to people saying one thing and then doing another." Asha eased herself to her feet and carefully stretched, wincing as she pulled on the wound in her side. She seemed steady enough on her feet, though, so Theo didn't offer his help when she gingerly walked off into the forest to relieve herself.

"What did you do with the bodies?" she asked when she came back.

"I took care of them." He'd bored a hole into the ground using an earthbreaker spell, then dropped the bodies in and heaped dirt and foliage over the top. He'd also turned over the dirt where blood had been spilt so it couldn't be seen, leaving nothing in the clearing to suggest any sort of fight had taken place here. "Sorry, I didn't think to ask—was there something I should have said or done with them?" Asha had been nonchalant about leaving the other bodies where they'd fallen, but she seemed to have at least been friendly with Nyala and Ezra.

"No, we don't really buy into anything. Kind of hard to with all the killing we do. Well, I know some people who…" Asha shook her head. "I'm sure whatever you did will be fine, as long as it can't be traced back to us."

"I took care of it."

Asha heated up their breakfast—leftover burgers from the previous day wrapped in foil and tossed in the coals—while Theo finished processing the last of their catch. The quicker they could put some distance between Ainsley and themselves, the better.

"So, we didn't finish our conversation from last night," Asha said as she poked through the coals with a stick.

"You fell asleep."

"Yeah, sorry about that. Where were we? Making plans for who would go which way?"

"No, you dragged me into this, and we're going to get out of it together." Theo pointed the knife he was using at her.

Asha straightened up. "So you'll help me with my assassin problem?"

"Only if you swear to me that you're not lying about the reason they're after you."

"I swear it. On—on whatever deity you want."

In the weeks they'd been travelling together, Theo didn't think he'd heard _sincere_ from Asha until now.

"Alright, then. Let's do this."

Asha proposed driving in a straight line from Ainsley, not making any efforts to hide their whereabouts. The assassins would come, but this time, they would be prepared for the attack.

-

At Theo's request, Asha tried to reason with the next assassin who came after her. It happened when Theo returned after buying food and heard voices on the other side of the car where they'd set up camp. The voices were low and vaguely threatening, so Theo assumed that it wasn't a social call and gave Asha time to resolve it on her own while getting ready to intervene in case she needed him.

Less than a minute passed before he heard blows being exchanged, and he rounded the car to find Asha kicking her assailant away, bloody knife in her hand.

"Didn't work," she said, leaning down to wipe her knife before rifling through the assassin's pockets. "She didn't want to talk."

"Did you—"

"Yes, Theo, I'm great at talking; you should know this." Asha threw a few things over to where her backpack was. "Grab her feet."

"What are you going to do?"

" _We're_ going to make her disappear. I've decided we don't need the Caramar authorities latching on to the idea of a possible serial killer, and it would send just as strong a message to the guild if all their operatives disappeared rather than leaving a trail of bodies behind us."

"And how are _we_ going to make this disappearing act happen?"

"I do the killing, you do the cleanup." Asha gave Theo a broad smile and clapped him on the shoulder. "That's partnership."

"Don't make me regret this."

It was rolling hills as far as the eye could see with no cover in sight, so they had no choice but to bury the body right next to the road where the grass was already thin and worn down and a freshly-disturbed patch of dirt wouldn't look out of place.

After that, things were quiet for a few days, and they took their chance to sleep in real beds for one night at a roadside motel. Nobody attacked them in the night, but the next morning, Asha discovered a bomb planted under her car.

"So much for wanting to take me back," she said as she dismantled the bomb with sure and steady hands. "I knew Nyala was full of shit."

The bombmaker found them again while they were tracking a rogue troll that had decided a mountain village made for a suitable hunting ground. Theo had doubled back to the car to fetch his staff, seen someone lying under the driver's side, and gone back up the mountain to fetch Asha. There'd been a single gunshot, no questions asked.

"I found bait for our trap," Asha said when Theo rejoined her at the car.

For another two weeks, they travelled the Caramar wilderness, picking up hunts where they could and foiling three more assassination attempts along the way. Eventually, they decided to try their luck in one of the smaller cities for a change, but if the assassins had been bold enough to attack in Adina, Theo doubted having a few potential witnesses around would be enough to deter them.

Sure enough, before it was even completely dark, they were jumped in an alley by two assassins that Asha made short work of. They took the bodies out to an abandoned lot and burned them.

"It's no good. They're not going to let up." Asha banged the back of her head against the brick wall behind her. "I honestly didn't think they'd go to this much trouble or I would've run further. I guess I thought the war would keep them busy."

"Looks like they've decided they can't afford to have you running loose. What's Plan B?"

"Leave the country. I'm betting if I run far enough, they're bound to give up at some point. You should come too. It's not like Caramar's ever done anything right by you."

"I can't. Not without my parents; I owe them everything. Not at least without saying goodbye and letting them know where I'm going."

"Fine, I suppose we can stay that long. How do we find them?"

Theo used the computers at the city library to comb through news articles about the war and satellite images of the border while Asha utilised her impressive network of contacts to obtain less publicly-available information about where Caramar had been deploying its mages. When they pieced all their information together, what they got was this: Theo's parents had been assigned to Iota Company, a frontline contingent comprised exclusively of mages, and just over four months ago, Rissalian news had reported that the latest attack by Caramar, involving a company of mages, had been successfully repelled.

But just as Theo was about to give up hope of ever seeing his parents alive again, when he searched for satellite images of the battlefield on that day, one of the photos taken after the fighting was over showed a large transport convoy heading away from the combat zone, and not nearly enough bodies left behind to suggest the entire company had been killed.

"Where does Rissal take its prisoners?" Theo tilted his monitor to show Asha the photo.

"We don't usually bother." Asha squinted at the screen. "Suspicious."

"Do you think you can find out where they're going?"

"I think I already know." Asha nudged Theo out of the way and took control of the mouse and keyboard. "This was fairly close to the border, right? The convoy's headed west, and there's nothing of great importance out that way except…this."

On the screen was a photo of an unremarkable compound with a large rectangular building in the centre surrounded by four or five smaller ones, all bordered by a single wire fence. An electric fence, most likely, but it hardly seemed like a secure enough place to be bringing prisoners of war, let alone ones that were mages.

"Secret prison," Asha said off Theo's skeptical look.

"How do you know that?"

"I killed someone inside once." Asha was almost gleeful. "Some political squabble. Both sides were throwing assassins back and forth; it was a great time for the guild."

"So you know how to get in?"

"If they haven't beefed up security too much since I was there."

"Well, this time, you've got me."

"Yeah." Asha didn't sound too happy. "Just one problem: I'm never going back."

"You don't have to go inside, I can handle it if you draw me a map." Theo doubted there would be any security measures in there that he wouldn't be able to handle.

"No, not the prison, Rissal. Which is where the prison happens to be located."

"I've never been to Rissal, and it'll be easier if you come with me."

"Yeah, but if you thought it was easy for the guild to get to me here, wait 'til we get there. We won't be able to trust a single person we come across."

"So you tell me where to go, and I'll do most of the asking around."

"They already know we're travelling together. And once they find out why we're in Rissal, I'd bet they won't hesitate to use your parents as leverage."

"So we'll have to work fast. You can do that, can't you?"

Asha scoffed. "Can I—hey! Don't think you can trick me into agreeing to come with you by insulting me."

"If you had to, how would you do it?"

"If it was a matter of life or death, you mean?"

"It might be so now."

"A matter of earth-shaking importance, maybe?"

"If that's what it takes to get you thinking of a plan."

"Alright, but first, you tell me what your secret government-bestowed powers are. Anything good for a prison break?"

"I'd rather not rely on them if we don't have to."

"And I'd rather not go back to Rissal if I don't have to. We're all making sacrifices here."

"It's not…I don't think it'll help." Actually, Theo was almost certain the opposite was true, but the reason he was on the run in the first place was because he didn't want to use those powers.

"Can you at least tell me?"

"I'd rather not."

Asha crossed her arms and gave Theo a challenging stare. "Me neither."

Theo looked around the small alcove of the library they were in, then out the window; no cameras, and no passersby. He reached out with his magic to touch the life force of a small shrub growing against the other side of the window, then drew its vitality into himself. As a spark of power grew within him—just a small amount; plant life never offered the same rush of power—the shrub withered and crumbled into dust.

"That's your big secret?" Asha didn't look impressed.

"See those trees?" Theo gestured at the trees lining the other side of the road. "I can turn them to dust from here. Those people—" a couple walking down the footpath "—and those—" a car sped down the road "—and you. Just like that." Theo waved his hand, and a gentle wind scattered the pile of dust. "Every life I take makes me stronger."

"Damn." Asha exhaled heavily. "And there's more like you out there? The war would have been over the day it started if you hadn't gotten out."

"I don't know anything about the others, but yes, my powers would be useful in a prison break. I wouldn't even need your help. But I'd really rather not."

"Fine. Get me some paper and I'll draw up what I remember."

Theo wasn't expecting much, but Asha's memory for floorplans was apparently impeccable, because they returned to their motel room that afternoon with a stack of paper, and the next morning, the desk in their room was covered with detailed sketches of not only each floor in the prison, but where the guard stations and security cameras were located.

"No motion detectors?" Theo asked after going over each paper and starting to formulate a plan in his mind. "Thermal sensors?"

"Not when I was there. But there'll be dampening field generators for sure, and even if we found some way to short out the cameras, the guards would just get suspicious and put the place into lockdown."

"What kind of locks are on the cell doors?"

"Magically keyed, I think. I didn’t have to deal with them; I waited until my target was in one of the common areas. Security must be tighter now."

"Doesn't matter, I should be able to take care of whatever locking mechanism they're using. And a cloaking spell will take care of the cameras without raising suspicion."

"Hello, dampening field?"

"Exactly, _dampening_ , not nullification." Nullification fields were spun by complex spells that required the constant attention of the caster, and couldn't yet be adapted to be generated by machinery like dampening fields could. "For most mages, dampening spells leave them with too little power to cast from, but if you have more than the usual amount of power to begin with, you might be able to cast something simple, like a basic cloaking spell."

"And you've got more power to begin with than the usual mage."

"Yes, but not so much that I'll be able to cloak both of us _and_ unlock the cells, so I'll have to go in alone."

"So I don't need to be there at all, is that right?" Asha perked up.

"No, I need you outside to disable the field generators. The only way we'll be able to free all the prisoners is if they can help too."

Asha's face fell. "You want to stage a mass breakout now? I can already tell you that if all the field generators mysteriously go down, the compound's bound to get a visit from the army base ten minutes up the road."

"What about one at a time? We'll get radios so we can coordinate our positions."

"You want to free what's got to be over a hundred mages from a secret prison in Rissal? With just the two of us?"

"Do you have a good reason for leaving a hundred mages in a secret prison in Rissal?"

"No, but then what? We can't take them back to Caramar."

"Some of them might have enlisted, you know. The draft didn't come about until a year into the war."

"I'll think of something better."

-

Asha came up with her solution in the middle of the night, exclaiming, "I've got it!" and leaping out of bed to turn on the lamp over the desk. "Solona."

"Solona?"

A small, mountainous country bordered on two sides by Caramar and Rissal and the third by the Acosian Sea, it was hardly the epic escape Theo had been picturing. Furthermore, the only thing he'd learned about Solona in school—besides the rumours that ranged from it being a wasteland to a paradise—was that it was a country so insular no one outside knew anything about it. He failed to see how that would be the answer to their problems.

"Yes!" Asha looked like she'd just had an epiphany. "Do you know how it's managed to remain an independent country all this time when it seems like either Caramar or Rissal could steamroll it for breakfast and still have enough resources left to take on each other for lunch? It's full of mages. Caramar and Rissal would never dare, not even with Caramar's growing mage population. And we've seen firsthand that Caramar doesn’t know how to make good use of its mages on the battlefield."

"Won't it be the first place anyone would look if they knew I'd left the country?"

"Yes, but I doubt they'd be able to get in, especially if we take off with a good proportion of Caramar's mages. See, the reason I went to Caramar instead of Solona is because its borders are heavily guarded, both magically and physically. I was in a bit of a rush to leave Rissal and it was easier to slip over the border into Caramar amongst all the fighting than it was to arrange for safe passage to Solona. But if I remember correctly, and I usually do, a train line that goes straight into Solona runs by the prison."

"If they're so paranoid about keeping their borders closed, why would they ever let us in?"

"Why wouldn't they? We're taking valuable resources from their neighbours and giving it to them. You'd say most of the mages would rather go to Solona than back to Caramar, wouldn't you?"

"The ones who were drafted, at least, but some of them will have left behind families—"

"Mage families, who would be more than welcome in Solona."

"And you? You're not a mage."

"Don't you worry about me, I know how to take care of myself." Asha shuffled through the papers on the table and pulled out her phone. "Let me make some calls. I know a few Solonans; they're not as reclusive as they like everyone else to think."

They had another visit from the assassin's guild the next night, and Theo pretended to be asleep while Asha swiftly dropped the intruder with a strike to the throat and a knife between the ribs.

"You might have to kill some of the guards in the prison, you know," she said as she wrapped the corpse in a spare blanket.

"I'm going to try not to."

"Sure you don't want to get in some practice before you get to the big event and freeze up? I'll let you have the next one."

"I'm not going to freeze up."

"Fine, but if your plan fails horribly because you were too nice to the guards, don't expect me to come running to your rescue."

-

They put their plan into action on an overcast morning, snow falling gently from the sky with the forecast promising more by mid-morning. Theo and Asha had slept in a warehouse overnight, and slipped into the back of a delivery truck bound for the prison just before it left.

The truck took them up to the compound gates, and Theo and Asha jumped out when the guards opened the doors to check the contents. Even outside the compound, Theo could feel the weight of the dampening field pressing down on him. It only got heavier the further inside they went, but his cloaking spell held fast over both of them until they were outside a maintenance entrance into the prison.

"Radio check exactly five minutes from now," Asha said before they parted ways.

"Watch out for the cameras," Theo reminded her as he let the cloaking spell slip off her.

Asha threw him an affronted look over her shoulder.

Four minutes and fifty seconds from their point of separation, Theo tucked himself into a quiet alcove and waited for Asha to radio in.

"I've found one of the generators," she told him. "South-east side. What about you?"

"I'm getting close to the cell block, but they've definitely upped security since you were last here." Several corridors that looked deceptively unguarded had motion sensors mounted on the walls, and those would take much more complex magic than a cloaking spell to bypass. Theo had to use the same routes that the guards did, which meant moving very carefully so they couldn't hear his footsteps or feel him brush by.

"They've put a few more cameras out here, but it doesn't seem so bad," Asha said.

"Watch out for motion sensors. I'll check in in fifteen minutes."

Fifteen minutes later, Theo had made his way to the cell block on the south-east side of the prison and had spread the word amongst the prisoners there to be ready to break out. He hadn't dropped the cloaking spell while speaking to them, but one of the perks of talking to other mages was that they weren't as fazed by strange happenings like voices speaking to them out of nowhere.

"Asha, you there?" Theo said quietly into his radio.

"Here," she replied.

"The first lot of prisoners are ready. Do you know where the next field generator is?"

"Yeah, north-east corner. They're not exactly hidden; I think whoever placed them was following a pattern. It should be pretty easy for me to figure out where they are. What's it looking like on the inside?"

"Well, we've got no choice but to keep going once we get started, right? We'll be able to deal with anyone from the inside if you get the field generator disabled."

"Did you find your parents?"

"Not yet."

"You don't want to find them first?"

"We're getting everyone out of here. I'll find them eventually."

"If you say so. Ready when you are."

Theo could feel the exact moment the dampening field was lifted. It was as if all his senses had previously been muffled, and only now could he see, hear, and feel properly. He unlocked the mechanism on the cell door closest to him with ease, and once the cell's occupants were out, under their own cloaking spells, they went down the corridor with him freeing the rest of the block.

"Everyone to Block B, we don't want to be stuck here when the dampening field comes back on," Theo ordered as the prisoners milled about in the corridors. If anyone was watching the security cameras they wouldn't see a thing out of place, but Theo could feel the buzz of magic along his skin that told him where everyone was as surely as if he was seeing them standing before him.

As they gradually moved within range of the other field generator, Theo could see a few cloaking spells begin to flicker. There weren't any guards on patrol right now, but anyone keeping watch on the camera feeds would notice that something was amiss.

"Asha, the next generator," Theo said into his radio.

The north-east generator turned off, and behind them, the south-east generator came back on.

Theo figured it wouldn't be long before the guards realised what was happening with the generators, or went to do their rounds of one of the blocks that were now empty, and raised the alarm. The second block went faster than the first, though, now that there were more people to help unlock the doors. They were on their way to Block A before Asha had even found the next generator.

After Block A, the guards had finally caught on to their pattern and were waiting for them at Block D, but with the dampening field lifted and the guards outnumbered, Block D wasn't much more difficult to liberate than the others had been.

"Everyone to the mess hall," Theo said, dropping his cloaking spell to conserve energy now that the game was up. The biggest part was still to come.

"Theo?" He heard a familiar voice say his name.

"Mum?" Theo only caught a glimpse of his mother before she was pulling him into a hug. As he returned her embrace, another pair of arms joined them. "Dad?"

"Theo, what are you doing here?" his father asked once the three of them had separated. "Did you—"

"I'm here to get you out. There's a train headed for Solona in…" Theo looked at his watch. "Fifty-three minutes."

"A train?" his mother asked. "How are we—"

"I'll explain later. Everyone needs to get to the mess hall now."

The mess hall wasn't far away, which was why Theo had left Block D for last. Once all the prisoners were inside, they barred the doors, and Theo put up a barrier spell around the hall.

"Now," he told Asha.

Her answer was a series of explosions going off outside, and Theo could feel the magic surging back into his body as the field generators blew. The other explosives Asha had planted around the perimeter of the prison went off next, and though the hall shook with the force of the explosions, the barrier spell held it together. Theo could feel others adding to the spell, easing the strain of keeping it going by himself.

When the shockwaves settled, Theo cautiously let the barrier spell fade away, and motioned for the people by the doors to open them. What greeted them was a mass of rubble easily moved out of the way now that there weren't any dampening fields to suppress the powers of a group of mages a hundred strong.

"Head west towards the cliffs," he told everyone when they looked to him for directions. "At the bottom of the canyon are train tracks. A train will be along in forty-five minutes to take us all to Lorin, in Solona. The driver knows we're getting on, but he won't be able to stop, only slow down, so we all need to be ready."

As they filed out, Theo tried to raise Asha on the radio, but all he got in response was a string of static and incomprehensible, barely-audible words.

"I can't hear you," Theo said, "but if you can hear me, we're headed for the tracks. I'll see you there."

Outside, the snow was falling faster than before, the forecasted blizzard looking like it was arriving right on schedule. The prison was unrecognisable now, and Theo was so focused on watching his step that he nearly fell over in surprise when a hand came to rest on his arm.

"Theo." It was Asha, covered in dust and snow. "Did you find them?"

Holding up the barrier spell around the mess hall must have strained him more than he'd thought, because Theo couldn't figure out who Asha was asking about. "Them?" he asked blankly.

"Your parents? The people we did all of this for?"

"Oh yeah, they…" Theo flapped a hand towards the front of the procession, "they're up there somewhere, making sure we're going the right way."

"Are you okay?" Asha was pushing Theo back upright, but he hadn't even noticed he'd been leaning on her.

"Yeah, fine, just a bit lightheaded. I'll be alright once we get on the train. Come on."

"No, I can't."

Theo had already taken a step forward, but he came back, wondering if he'd misheard. "Why not?"

"Most of the guards weren't in the prison, they were in separate barracks at the back of the compound. They're mobilising now, and if they've got any sense, they'll call in the army. You'll need someone to cover your escape."

"The storm's picking up, I doubt they'll be able to find us if they don't know where we're going, and we can always put up a cloaking spell."

"You think they don't know that? The guards might have become complacent, but the army won't mess around. They know they're dealing with mages, and they'll outfit themselves accordingly." Asha looked at her watch. "Forty minutes until our train passes by. The army can be here in fifteen."

"What can you do by yourself?"

"Well, I've got a few charges left, and there's plenty of spare guns and ammo lying around. At the very least, I can lead them in the wrong direction, maybe take out a few soldiers before they catch wind of where you're going. If everything goes well, I'll still have time to catch up."

"Then I'll stay too. It'll be faster if there's two of us."

"No, you'll just slow me down. Get moving."

Asha gave Theo a hard shove, and he stumbled on the uneven ground. By the time he regained his balance and looked around, Asha was gone.

For a moment, Theo considered going after her, but Asha was right: she knew how to take care of herself, and Theo didn't want to get in her way and be responsible for both of them missing the train. He left Asha to her own devices and went after the prisoners.

The storm had picked up quickly, dumping even more snow over the already-blanketed field around the compound. By the time they reached the cliff, they were trudging through a knee-high layer of the stuff, making deep tracks that were quickly covered behind them. Theo was the very last of the group and he kept checking over his shoulder, waiting for Asha or a squadron of soldiers to emerge from the blizzard, but nobody came.

"Theo, there you are!" his father shouted over the howling wind when he reached the cliff. Hardly anyone was left atop the ridge. "Your mother's already gone down with the others, they've put up a barrier spell to keep the snow away. Come on!" Theo's father gestured for him to go first.

"You go ahead, I'm going to wait up here for a bit!" Theo rubbed his freezing hands together and summoned forth a small flame to warm them up.

"Whatever for?"

"My…friend! She stayed behind to…to…"

To take on an entire barracks worth of guards and who knew how many soldiers by herself. And Theo had left her. That wasn't what partners did, let alone friends.

"I'll be right back!"

Without further hesitation, he ran back along the fading path towards the ruins of the prison.

-

The army had come, like Asha had said they would, and they'd come in _droves_. At least a dozen trucks had rolled up to where the entrance of the prison had been, and there had to be over a hundred soldiers combing the wreckage. Through the blinding snow, Theo thought he saw a helicopter land on the other side of the prison.

He cast a cloaking spell over himself to more easily slip back into the prison, and circled around the back to the other side where Asha had said she would be.

He found her crouched behind a precariously-balanced slab of concrete that had once been a wall, peering down at the soldiers searching through the ruins.

"Asha!" Theo yelled as he dropped the cloaking spell, keeping a safe distance so she wouldn't attack him by mistake.

"Theo?" Asha yelled back. "What are you doing here?"

"I came back for you!" Theo threw up a barrier spell around Asha as the broken wall came down around her. "We're doing this together!"

"I don't need your help!" Asha said even as she took the hand Theo held out.

The rest of the building came down around them, blocking off the way Theo had come. Asha motioned for him to follow her, and she led the way through the rubble towards the front of the prison, where a squad of soldiers was waiting for them. They quickly changed directions.

The other side wasn't much better; a storage shed that housed a tank was located there, and the soldiers had gotten the tank working. Asha tackled Theo to the ground out of the way of the incoming shell, and it left a crater in the pile of rubble where they'd been standing.

"One tank or a squad of soldiers?" Asha asked, her face pressed to the ground right next to Theo's. "Choose quickly."

"Soldiers," Theo said without hesitation. As much as he hated to admit it, he could do much more damage against living people.

While the tank was taking aim and getting ready to make another shot, Asha pulled Theo to his feet and they ran back to where they'd last encountered the soldiers.

Theo didn't even have to think about it, just reached out with his magic to touch the life force of each of the six soldiers before him, and the spell that constantly thrummed under his skin, waiting to be let out, eagerly devoured them, filling him with a surge of power that was all too easy to get drunk on. Six people gone, just like that. Six people with lives, with families, turned to dust. There wouldn't even be anything left of their bodies to send home.

"Get down!" Asha's warning shout registered in Theo's mind just in time for him to throw himself to the ground as she sprayed a round of bullets at the second squad that had rounded the corner. She ejected the empty magazine and picked up another from the pile of empty uniforms in front of Theo, blowing off the dust before slotting the magazine into place.

Asha hauled Theo to his feet with a hand in the back of his shirt, and he followed her across the rubble to a more intact section of the prison, climbing a crumbling set of stairs for a better look at their surroundings. Even with the blizzard, it seemed like more and more soldiers were arriving by the minute, and Theo could see them spread out across the snow field, scattered black dots against the white.

He looked down at his watch. Fifteen minutes. Even if the way was clear, it would take them that much time to get to there. "We're not going to make it."

He could at least find consolation in the fact that even if the soldiers made it to the cliff, they couldn't get down to the train tracks without the help of a mage, and Theo hadn't seen any within their ranks yet.

"No, we should—" Asha's reply was cut off by an almighty explosion, and the floor gave out beneath them.

Theo put up a barrier spell around himself and threw one out to where he thought Asha was as well. The spell took the brunt of the fall and Theo rolled easily back onto his feet, only to throw himself back to the ground when automatic gunfire opened on his location.

"Theo!" He heard Asha yell his name over the howling wind and hammering gunshots. "The helicopter!"

He looked dubiously at the helicopter on its dedicated landing pad that could just be seen through the blinding snow. "How's that going to help us?" he yelled back.

"It's better than nothing!"

Theo didn't have a good argument to counter that, so when Asha began making her way towards the helicopter, he followed.

One unlucky guard chanced upon their position, and before Asha could react to the gun in her face, Theo had reached out and drained the life force from the guard until what was left of him blew away with the snow. Magic surged within his tired body, and he let it flow out into a pulse that cleared a path to the helicopter.

"Up you get."

Theo hadn't even noticed he'd fallen until Asha was putting an arm around him and pulling him to his feet. She all but carried him the last few metres to the helicopter, depositing him in the passenger seat and taking the pilot's seat.

"You know how to fly this thing?" Theo asked, leaning his head against the cold glass of the window in the door in an attempt to keep himself awake. He'd never worked this much magic for so long before, especially not that one spell he'd always fought to suppress, and controlling it was taking more energy than he had to give.

"It's been a while, but these all work the same, I think." Asha's hands were roaming uncertainly over the controls.

"Take your time, I don't think anyone—"

No sooner had Theo begun to speak than a spray of bullets hit the tail of the helicopter.

"Damn!" Asha looked briefly out the rear passenger windows, then returned her attention to the controls.

She flicked a few switches, turned a few knobs, and pressed a few buttons, and the helicopter shuddered to life, but it was taking too long to get off the ground. Some bullets were starting to hit the windows now, and Theo might have been imagining it, but he thought he could hear shouting that was getting closer.

He straightened up in his seat and held on to the door handle for support, then closed his eyes and reached out with his magic to touch the life force of everyone surrounding the helicopter.

Then he pulled the energy into himself, and at the same time, tried to push as much of it as he could into the helicopter so that his body wouldn't be consumed by the overload.

As the number of life signs outside dropped off, the helicopter began to rise.

Theo took the reins off the spell to let it seek out the life force it craved; the train would be far away by now, his parents and the other prisoners safe and on their way to Solona. He had no idea how high the helicopter had gotten, and he didn't dare to open his eyes to look for fear of losing concentration and breaking the spell, but the wind was driving them forward, and he let it carry them wherever it wanted.

But the further it took them from the prison, the harder it became to maintain contact with the few life signs that remained. It wasn't enough. He needed more power.

"That's enough," he heard a voice say from far away. "You can let go now." A hand came to rest on top of his.

Something about the touch made him break contact with the spell, and as his body slumped with the wave of exhaustion that surged through it, he felt someone grab hold of him before the darkness claimed him.

-

Theo slowly returned to consciousness, gradually becoming aware that he was moving and that there was a low, incessant humming sound coming from somewhere close by. With great effort, he pried his eyes open, and was greeted by the clear blue of the sky. He stared out the window of the helicopter for a few seconds before turning to look at Asha in the pilot's seat.

She was wearing a pair of headphones and concentrating on flying the helicopter, and didn't seem to notice yet that he was awake. There was another pair of headphones hanging over Theo's head, and he pulled them down and put them on.

"Hey." Asha looked over and grinned broadly at him. "We're not dead." Her voice came through slightly tinny over the headphone speakers.

"No, we're not." Theo could honestly say he was surprised by this revelation.

"You held on long enough for me to figure out how to work the controls. I almost couldn't get you to let go, though. I really thought I might've lost you."

"How long?"

"You've only been out for an hour, but…it was a hell of an hour. You fell over against the door and I couldn't reach you to see if you were alright."

Or alive; Theo could hear the relief in Asha's voice that she didn't show on her face. Just to be sure her relief wouldn't be short-lived, he did a quick self-assessment of his current state: no head injuries as far as he could tell, a minor graze from a bullet on his upper left arm that he hadn't noticed before, and a deep-seated sense of exhaustion, but nothing too serious overall.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Solona, to meet with the others. I'm almost certain the Rissalian air force is tracking us, but they won't be able to fly out of the blizzard or stop us at the border, so we'll make it there no problem. You should get some rest, we're still a few hours out."

Theo looked out the window for a little longer, but there was little to see save for the blue skies around them and the dark storm clouds below.

"Wake me when we're close," he said before closing his eyes.

-

Theo next awoke not in the helicopter but in a bed, somewhere dark and warm with the murmur of quiet conversation happening behind a wall not far away providing background noise. The bone-deep exhaustion that pervaded his body still lingered, but it felt more like a natural tiredness now than a heavy weight trying to drag him back down into the darkness.

"I tried to wake you as we came down, but you wouldn't wake up." Asha's quiet voice came from somewhere to Theo's right.

There was a scraping sound as she dragged her chair closer to Theo's bed, then she clicked on the lamp on the bedside table, adjusting it to its dimmest setting. She'd been sharpening her knife, which she placed on the table along with the whetstone she'd been using.

"You missed quite the view."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to sleep for so long." Theo rubbed his eyes and tried to sit up, but his body didn't want to listen to his commands.

"I'll take you up again," Asha said. "Once the mechanics have gotten all the tracking devices out of the helicopter, that is."

"We're in Solona, then?"

"Most definitely over the border, yes. The train would've taken the others all the way to Lorin, but it's only two hours away by snowmobile."

"Snowmobile?"

"Longer by dogsled, shorter by helicopter, but the helicopter's going to be hard to fuel up out here."

"We're really out here, aren't we?" Theo was going to get to see if any of the stories about Solona were true after all. He'd never really believed he would get the chance until now.

"Oh yeah, whole new world."

Asha went back to sharpening her knife, and Theo looked around the room properly now that there was more light to see by. It looked like they were in a cabin, sparse as far as furnishings went, with a fireplace at one end, not currently lit, firewood stacked up on either side of the hearth. It was so incongruous with the last clear image he'd had, being gunned down from all sides while being buffeted by the wind and snow.

"How many people did I kill?" he asked, thinking of what the prison compound must look like now.

Without stopping the slide of her knife across the whetstone, Asha said, "I didn't exactly have time to stop and count, but I'd put good money on your lifetime kill count being less than mine."

"Asha."

"Theo. Don't dwell on it. Take this advice from someone who knows what they're talking about: you did what you had to do."

"I didn't have to." If Theo had left on that train, he would be in Lorin with his parents now, and all those soldiers and guards he'd killed would still be alive, but Asha would have been captured or killed. "You said to me once that there was always a choice."

"And that you might not like what you have to choose from," Asha finished for him. "Did you choose correctly?"

"I don't know yet."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry you had to."

"The right choice or not," Theo murmured, "I'd make it again."

Asha was smiling at him—really smiling, soft and warm, not like the empty, overly-bright smiles she turned on marks and informants. "Thanks for coming back. I'm glad you did."

"That's what friends are for." Theo held out his hand.

Asha looked at it for a moment before she put her knife down and took Theo's hand in hers. "Get some rest," she said. "I'll be here when you wake up."


End file.
